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I am a first year student here at UTEP and I am a student athlete. I've heard all kinds of negative things about the campus and life here in El Paso but as far as I can see everything that was said was wrong and far fetched. El Paso seems to be a great place to me and even though I haven't been here for very long it's starting to become a second home. Now at times do I get bored or down, yes, but being from dallas, which is nine hours away, I do tend to get a little home sick. I've made several friends here and have even made some what I believe to be life long friends. The university is a great you to attend school and I'm really excited about my next four years here as a student athlete. So for everyone who has something negative to say about the university, I really do hope you have a very legitimate reason for doing so and that you yourself have experienced the wrongs that you are accusing the campus of having. Utep is a great university and I am happy to call myself a miner. Go Utep!!!

UTEP does not offer a single experience. There are positives and negatives.Negatives: large freshman classes. Open admissions. Many freshmen are unprepared and apathetic. Attitude. Many students seem to think college is a fashion show. Campus is full of kids thinking they are hot **** with their Hollister and Aeropostale Outlet Mall outfits. A lot of these students show up to classes with a high school attitude, they talk and text the whole time.

Positives: Once you get past the freshman level, and into upper division courses in your major or minor, most of the immature students are weeded out or have grown up a bit.

Faculty are generally welcoming or helpful, but this varies widely by department.Some people may be put off by the lack of social activity, but if you want to focus on learning, those distractions are gone.

I will do my best to ignore the negative things posted here, especially when someone complains about other students not knowing how to "wright" essays, etc. Please, if you want to be critical, make sure you can do so intelligently yourself! I am very pleased with the education I received while attending UTEP which, of course, had a bad reputation even when I was young. Everyone I knew who "had anything going on at all" had to go away to a "known" Texas school like UT Austin or even somewhere like Texas State University which itself had a reputation of being a party school. Needless to say, that is where I started and ended up transferring back to EP to straighten some things out. I have to say that by getting involved with peers through a campus organization (the BSU) and pursuing my educational goals, I grew leaps and bounds as a person and as a future professional. I immediately entered my chosen field of Social Work and was COMPLETELY prepared to excel in that field (as much as anyone is prepared without being versed in the situational things that come up, of course). I worked in Santa Theresa and then EP (Providence, where I was born) and then moved to Central Texas. I went on to get my graduate degree in a similar field and am pleased to say that my undergraduate degree was viewed as comparable to a degree from any other school. I have worked along-side graduates from schools like UT and OU and am well-respected for my knowledge and abilities, many of which I credit, yes, here it comes, UTEP! I do believe you get what you put into things so I think if you are deteremined to PREPARE YOURSELF by studying hard and gaining as much knowledge that you can and being gracious about it, you can be successful. I also have to say God helped the most. I did have one professor who challenged my values and might have kept me from attending the graduate school that was offered through UTEP. Bitter? Nah, everything works out. As said before, I moved to Central Texas and got my Masters there. Stand your ground and work your tail off, be persistent and never, never give up and you too can be successful, even graduating from the "oh-so-low" University of Texas at El Paso. I imagine it has even improved since I was there. Unless you have a chip on your shoulder, and have to have something impressive to display to be "someone", a degree is a degree and it will be the chip that will keep you from getting that job! Be proud if you grew up in El Paso. I've come across so many colleagues who can't spell or WRITE worth a beans who graduated from big, bad universities. I've learned to assess intelligence and respect-worthiness by observing other things and not being so dang judgmental. Personality, and character go much further than where you graduated from. However, UTEP did contribute to who I am today and I am blessed to have had the opportunity to do a lot of my "growing" there. I have very little negative to say but I WANTED a good education and only I could be responsible to get one, and I did. Oh, one more thing, being biligual is golden. Keep up with the Espanol. In summary (tee, hee) here is a big thanks to UTEP for preparing me for my field and the world.